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Fatwa CenterMaking a Legal Joint Will for a Non-Heir
Question
Assalamualykum,i am an indian musim and would require guidence on below.My paternal uncle and his wife are childless couple. both of them have brothers and sisters and their siblings. i am living with them along with my wife and two children. They have a house and some land on which the house is built. They want to make a legal joint will that after their death i will be the inheritor. kinldy advise if this is allowed in islamic shariah or not.if it is not allowed can you suggest a way for instance if they can make a Gift will or any other alternative which will be in accordance with shariah law.Jazakallah khairsajjad azhar
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
Dear brother, you did not clarify to us what it meant by: "to make a legal joint will that after their death I will be the inheritor", we do not understand what you mean by that.
In any case, what we can say is that determining who is an heir and who is not is a matter that is not based on the wishes and desires of the people; rather, it depends on the Sharee’ah of Allah.
Whomever Allah has made an heir, then he is an heir and it is not permissible to deprive him from the inheritance or to use trickery in order to exclude him from his right in any way.
Likewise, the one whom Allah did not make an heir has no share in the inheritance. However, it is permissible for the bequeather to make a will of no more than one-third of the inheritance for a non-heir before his/her death.
Based on this, you inherit your uncle if he is a full-brother to your father or he is half a brother from the father’s side. But you only inherit him in case he does not have an agnate who is closer to him than you, like a full-brother, or half a brother from the father’s side.
In the case when you are not an heir who can (Islamically) inherit him, then it is not permissible for him to make you inherit him based on a law that permits a person to decide whomever he wishes to be his heir. It is not permissible based on such a law to take anything from the inheritance.
Moreover, you do not inherit from your uncle's wife just because she is his wife, and it is not permissible for her to make you inherit her based on the law if you are not (Islamically) a legitimate heir to her.
The Islamic way for you to own the wealth of your uncle and his wife, or some of it, is that each one of them makes a will of one-third of his inheritance to you. If they die before you then you deserve that one-third from the share of each one of them. Otherwise, they can gift you now [while they are still alive] whatever they wish from their wealth, but you should take actual possession of whatever they gift you, during their lives and while they are in sound mind, and you should be able to dispose of it as its owner while they take their hands off it.
Allah knows best.
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